Showing results by narrator "Talmadge Ragan" in All Categories

Abby Maddox is serving 20 years for slashing Seattle PD officer Jerry Isaac's throat during the harrowing capture of her former lover, serial killer Ethan Wolfe. To the demented fans, lunatics, and creeps on the outside, she is a celebrity. But to Jerry, now a private investigator whose scarred neck and tortured speech are daily reminders of Abby's vicious attack, she alone may be the key to solving a new wave of murders. Because this killer has been sending her love letters, and carving a message on the victims' bodies: Free Abby Maddox.

Dr. Sheila Tao is a professor of psychology, an expert in human behavior with her own hidden past. But she's not the only one keeping secrets. When Sheila began an affair with her sexy graduate assistant Ethan Wolfe, she knew she was playing with fire. Consumed by lust when they were together, she was riddled with guilt when they were apart. Now she's finally engaged to a good man, and it's time to end the dangerous liaison. But Ethan has something different in mind. He intends to make her pay for rejecting him.

Known for her lush, intricate worlds and complex characters, acclaimed author Martha Wells has delighted readers with her extraordinary fantasy novels of daring and wit. With The Wizard Hunters she launched her most ambitious undertaking yet-the return to the beloved world of the Nebula Award-nominated The Death of the Necromancer and The Fall of Ile-Rien.

Ile-Rien is in peril. A mysterious army known only as the Gardier has surrounded the country, attacking in ominous black airships. Hope is not lost though, for a magical sphere created by Ile-Rien's greatest sorcerer may hold the key to defeating the faceless enemy. But the sphere is unpredictable and has already claimed several lives. When a magical spell goes disastrously awry, young Tremaine Valiarde and a brave band are transported to another world-a world of rough magics, evil mages, honorable warriors, and a secret Gardier base.

When a local group home for orphaned children goes up in smoke right before the holidays, Tillie Winchester volunteers her family to take in some kids - even though her arch nemesis Margaret Little is dead-set against it. Three boys - all of them with a little attitude - have no idea what to expect from the Winchester household. Tillie is determined to prove the boys are innocent while also finding them a forever home...even if she has to take on a local judge and declare all-out war.

Private investigator Alexandra Lovell uses computer skills and cunning to help clients drop off the radar and begin new lives in safety. Melanie Bess, desperate to escape her abusive cop husband, was one of those clients. But when Melanie vanishes for real, Alex fears the worst, and sets out to discover what happened. Using every resource she can get her hands on - including an elite team of forensic scientists known as the Tracers and a jaded, sexy Austin PD detective - Alex embarks on a mission to uncover the truth.

Tremaine Valiarde and a small, brave band of heroes ventured into a wondrous new realm on their desperate mission to save Ile-Rien from the conquering Gardier. Now, as a relentless enemy creates chaos and destruction - with the fate of the magical city of Lodun hanging in the balance - the last hope of a land besieged may rest on the far side of a secret portal.

Can a painting hold a secret safe in plain sight across seven centuries? The murder of the last member of an old Venetian family peels back the rug on a shocking truth that draws art historian and textile expert Phoebe McCabe into the fray. What she sees in the missing Renaissance symbology will shake the foundations of religious and cultural assumptions across two continents and point the way to a priceless hoard. It’s a secret potent enough to pitch rival factions against Phoebe and her team while destroying history as collateral damage along the way.

It’s time to return to Hemlock Cove with five fun tales of Winchester fun. Join the Winchester witches - and those who love them - for a bevy of mischief and mayhem. Spend time in the present with Clove, Thistle, and Landon and travel through time with Twila and Aunt Tillie. This 140,000-word omnibus includes five shorts: "Four-Leaf Clover", "Thistle While You Work", "Landon Calling", "I Dream of Twila", and "How Aunt Tillie Stole Christmas".

Trading in Texas heat for Maine's tangy salt air, Natalie Barnes risked it all to buy the Gray Whale Inn, a quaint bed and breakfast on Cranberry Island. She adores whipping up buttery muffins and other rich breakfast treats for her guests until Bernard Katz checks in. The overbearing land developer plans to build a resort next door where an endangered colony of black-chinned terns is nesting. Worried about the birds, the inevitable transformation of the sleepy fishing community, and her livelihood, Natalie takes a public stand against the project.

Elaina McCord's dream of being an FBI profiler is threatened by her very first case-investigating a string of murders near a Texas beach resort. The victims, all young women, were drugged and brutally murdered, their bodies abandoned in desolate marshland. Elaina's hunch-met with disbelief by local police-is that these are only the latest offerings from a serial killer who has been perfecting his art for years, growing bolder and more cunning with each strike.

Miriam Bryant has always dreamed of leaving the never-ending work of her family's remote mountain ranch to travel abroad as a genteel lady. She's thrilled when the opportunity finally arises, but a gruesome hunting accident crushes her plans, leaving her stranded for weeks in a mining town. The single bright spot in her disappointment comes in the form of this mountain town's newest doctor. Fresh out of medical school, Alex Donaghue is excited to join his brother's practice and prove himself in the mining town of Butte, in Montana Territory.

Navy SEAL Derek Vaughn is back home from a harrowing rescue mission in which he found evidence of a secret terror cell on U.S. soil. Elizabeth knows he'll do anything to unravel the plot - including seducing her for information. And despite the risks involved, she's tempted to let him. Together with the forensics experts at the Delphi Center, Derek and Elizabeth are closing in on the truth. But it may not be fast enough to avert a devastating attack.

Jane Middlebourne needs a way out. In 1891, life in New York is unforgiving for a young woman with no prospects, especially when her family wants nothing to do with her. So when Jane discovers an ad for a mail-order bride needed in Bitter Springs, Wyoming, she responds with a hopeful heart. Rancher Morgan Longstreet is in want of a wife who will be his partner at Morning Star, someone who will work beside him and stand by him. His first impression of the fair and fragile Jane is that she is not that woman.

It was the glittering intellectual world of 1920s Paris expatriates in which Pauline Pfeiffer, a writer for Vogue, met Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley among a circle of friends that included Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, and Dorothy Parker. Pauline grew close to Hadley but eventually forged a stronger bond with Hemingway himself; with her stylish looks and dedication to Hemingway's writing, Pauline became the source of "unbelievable happiness" for Hemingway and, by 1927, his second wife.

A plague of vampirism has crept across the country, reducing once-thriving cities to ghost towns. In Chicago, a few scattered survivors hide behind the fortified walls of office buildings and museums, raiding deserted stores for dwindling supplies of clothing and food.

The women's rights movement grew out of the women's suffrage movement of the mid-1800s and also addressed other women's legal rights issues. The second wave of the movement, which promoted economic, political, and social equality, gained momentum in the 1960s and '70s, when such groups as the National Organization for Women fought for equal pay and laws banning employment discrimination.

After experiencing a precognitive dream that shatters her engagement and changes her life forever, young California psychology professor Laurel MacDonald decides to get a fresh start by taking a job at Duke University in North Carolina. She soon becomes obsessed with the long-buried files from the world-famous Rhine parapsychology experiments, which attempted to prove if ESP really exists. As she teams up with another charismatic professor, they uncover disturbing reports....

Sixteen-year-old Bernadette Terrell is a champion debater who loves books, contests, and winning. When she's named captain of her school's Classics Bowl team to compete on TV against an elite private school for the state title, she's thrilled. It's more than a chance to earn glory for her town, and scholarship money for her family - not to mention make non-fictional friends. She's been training for this her whole life. Winning is her destiny. Or is it?

Kat Denham, a popular author of steamy romance novels, has decided to write a book in a different genre. She has a friend who's a doctor of acupuncture, has just lost over 100 pounds, is getting married in mid-life for the first time to a doctor, and seems like the perfect role model for the protagonist in Kat's soon-to-be-written book.